For his first personally-directed production in his tenure as the National Theatre's new honcho, Nicholas Hytner chose that most famous of war plays, Henry V, which the institution had never mounted, probably in deference to the celebrated Oscar-winning 1944 film by Hytner's predecessor, Sir Laurence Olivier. This film, superb though it was, used less than a third of Shakespeare's text and turned the title character into a heroic paragon to boost British morale in World War II. Even Kenneth Branagh's grittier 1989 film sanitized the play. Hytner's modern-dress version -- by coincidence rehearsed during the Iraq war -- retains the text's ambivalence about leadership and sour view of battle. In the title role, Hytner cast black actor Adrian Lester, stating, "It is interesting that perhaps the most admired British Shakespearean actor of his generation is black."
Hytner is quite right: Lester, now turning 35, has for some years been the most dazzlingly versatile performer of his age. His portrayal here is absolutely stunning. In Shakespeare's fourth-longest role (after Hamlet, Richard III and Iago) he gives us a highly nuanced character -- by turns inspiring, confident, self-doubting, angry, amusing, appalling, reverent. When he rouses his troops with "Once more unto the breach," his wearied men groan. Sitting on the hood of his jeep, he begins his "St. Crispian" speech low and builds it gradually. His "ceremony" soliloquy is gorgeously spoken. "O God of battles" finds him on his knees with tears in his eyes. Yet when his former drinking buddy Bardolph is caught robbing a church, Henry shocks everyone by pulling out his pistol and killing the culprit at point blank. And when, against the rules of war, he orders that "every soldier kill his prisoners," his men refuse until one soldier mows the Frenchmen down with a machine gun.
In today's media-obsessed world, a number of the speeches are presented on video, by microphone, or by bullhorn (and there is even a flashback home video of Falstaff carousing with Henry, in his youthful Prince Hal days, sporting dreadlocks and playfully crossing his eyes). In battle Henry and the soldiers wear fatigues, backpacks and helmets. Two jeeps drive on stage, and in one scene, a half dozen disabled military vehicles are visible. When the English are victorious at Agincourt, they march off singing the well-known hymn, "Angels, From the Realms of Glory."
Lester has strong support from the 28-person cast, especially from Peter Blythe as his uncle the Duke of Exeter. The narrating Chorus, whose six speeches are here divided into nine, are effectively delivered by Penny Downie as a sort of cardigan-wearing schoolmarm.
